Nothing to Kill or Die For
by 1nf1n1tystr1k3s
Summary: Prequel to Would You Believe in a Love at First Sight. Part 0.5 of the Found My Heart series. Amelie and Charon meet and quickly form a bond that can't be broken. (no smut since you know when THAT happens, but lots of fluff and feelings and mushiness on Charon's part tbh)
1. Chapter 1

(AN: HI. Please see my notes at the end of this chapter; I have some explaining to do but I didn't want to have a whole paragraph of it up here.)

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Thirty years I stood ten feet to the left of this asshole, awaiting my orders. Thirty years I withstood abuse, derogatory hatred, and life-threatening quests that were not worth the trip. Thirty years I put up with it all, though I had no choice in the matter regardless, but I did it quietly, stoically.

Until _she_ walked in, throwing me a single-second glare, a mane of fluffy golden brown hair bouncing behind her as she stormed up to Ahzrukhal's bar and slammed a sack of caps down in front of him. I strained my ears, or what was left of them anyway, and tried to hear their conversation. She was angry. Most people who walked into the Ninth Circle who were not bar regulars were angry for one reason or another - often, at Ahzrukhal, angry that he would cheat them out of a deal. And then he would order me to dispose of them. But she was somehow different, and I had never seen her before. She had not been in this bar. The only words I could make out were "inhuman," "bastard," "contract".

Ahzrukhal's sly smile turned sour when her turn to speak was over. My stomach turned in anticipation. Excitement? It was hard to tell. She had caps and spoke about contracts. Was my contract about to change hands? How would she ever have convinced Ahzrukhal to… give up his prized indentured slave?

Most importantly, would she be worse than him? She seemed angry with me somehow. Not that it was impossible she could be; after all, I was responsible for the deaths and suffering of many. I probably killed her parents, or her siblings, or her child. Who knows? The skeletons in my closet are a blur after so many years.

Ahzrukhal slid the sack of caps off the bar and reached into his jacket pocket. Asshole. Kept the contract close to ensure that no one could take it from him without his notice, but close enough that it would be easy if anyone were to try and I wasn't around to stop them. He slid it to her across the dirty bar and she snatched it before he could scam her out of her caps and the contract. I held my breath. I had to keep my heart rate down. She folded it, tucked the contract into her left breast pocket, and stalked over to me. I only then noticed how short she was, how wiry her body seemed.

"Charon," she said once she approached me, craning her head back to look me in the eyes. "I'm your new employer. My name is Amelie. Do anything you need to do, and then we're leaving this awful place and we're not coming back."

"I just need to take care of something," I muttered, pulling out my shotgun and approaching the bar.

"Charon," Ahzrukhal purred. "Have you come to say goodbye?"

"Yes." I shot him, once, point-blank in his chest. His ribcage exploded, spraying blood on the front of my armor.

"Jesus!" My new employer, new mistress shouted from my old corner. "I expected you would probably kill him, but not point-blank with a shotgun." She went behind the bar and took her cap sack back from his jacket pocket, as well as his own stash of caps. The two patrons that had been in the bar had gone as soon as I shot Ahzrukhal - whether to run for Dr. Barrows, or to get out of dodge, I would never know. It was late in the evening, and we were alone. My new employer broke into Ahzrukhal's safe and storage, taking anything that wasn't nailed down. She paused, turning to me. "This isn't against some rule with your contract, is it? You aren't going to kill me for stealing from your previous employer?"

I resisted the urge to chuckle. "I do not believe it is considered stealing if he is dead."

She contemplated, then shrugged. "Good enough for me. Ha!" After stuffing her pack full of Ahzrukhal's booze, chems, caps and other whatnots, she turned to me and pressed her sack of caps into my hand. "1000 caps."

"I do not normally accept pay for my labor."

"You do now. That 1000 caps is what I spent getting your contract in the first place, and since Ahzrukhal isn't gonna need it, it's yours, because it was spent anyway." She seemed exasperated. 1000 caps. That was all I was worth to him. Thirty years of service, gone, for 1000 measly caps. "Please, just take it. Take the money and buy yourself something nice. Some new armor, maybe, because yours is looking pretty rank." She hoisted her pack up onto her back, a bulging mess of items. "We gotta go. You were more than justified in killing him, but I don't think either of us want to deal with the potential fallout."

I shrugged, taking my pack from its spot behind the bar. It didn't have much in it - nonperishable food, one bottle of dirty water, one Stimpak, and two loaded pistols. I preferred to travel light, and Ahzrukhal never bothered to give me any more than that. Not that I owned anything worth losing, except my shotgun. "I can carry some of your weight, mistress."

She shook her head, pushing through The Ninth Circle's double doors. "No, I got it. Thanks."

I furrowed my brows, or what was left of them. I couldn't figure her out. She had seemed… nice? She purchased my contract seemingly knowing Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard, knowing that The Ninth Circle was my own personal Hell. She tried to pay me… no one had tried that for over a century. But, now, she seemed short with me. I tried to push it out of my mind. Just had to get to the next step, and then I could figure it out.

On the stairs inside Underworld, my new employer strapped a bandana around her face and pulled her hood up. Her eyes were the only visible part of her face, and she flashed them to me, nudging her head in the direction of the exit. There was a lot of hubbub, folks walking into The Ninth Circle to see what happened for themselves. Doc Barrows, I could hear, muttered about how it would be pointless for him to go up now; there was no way Ahzrukhal would have survived.

We pushed through the heavy iron doors, and left Underworld, possibly for good.

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(AN: HI. So, I kept having this thought in my head of a mini-prequel to Love at First Sight and like, I COULDN'T get it to go away, it literally pops into my head every day, so, here. I really wanted to explore how Amelie and Charon met, how their friendship developed, etc. This won't be super long, and it won't involve the entire 9 months between her receiving his contract and the start of LAFS, but… hopefully it's fun, and hopefully I don't accidentally inconsistency myself, because honestly as time has gone on I've developed these characters more and more and one day I WILL rewrite LAFS to reflect the changes I've made in my head. But, if you do notice an inconsistency, PLEASE let me know. I have to know so I can figure out what needs to be changed. Also, this is NOT the part 2 that I promised at the end of part 1! That will be coming soon, probably after I finish this, because it won't take too long. Anyway. Thanks for reading!)


	2. Chapter 2

As we walked past the woolly mammoth in the entryway to the Museum, my new mistress stopped. She pulled out the folded up, worn contract out of her breast pocket and shoved it in my direction. "Now that we're finally out of there. Here."

My brows furrowed in confusion. "I can't."

"You can't?"

"I cannot take my own contract. That's not how it works."

She flipped open the folded paper and skimmed it. "How _does_ it work? Because this is too worn for me to read."

I sighed. I'd had to have this conversation many times over the years, but never with someone who wanted to give me my freedom such as this. "You have purchased my contract with a good or a service; in this case, 1000 caps. You are my employer, and I will follow your orders to the letter. You will be my employer until you sell my contract to another for a good or service. Intentional violence invalidates the contract. I will defend you, protect you, and lay down my life for your safety. And now, for good or ill, I serve you."

She closed her eyes, a beat expression crossing her face. She ran a hand through her thick, brown hair, knocking off her hood. "So I can't just free you."

"I'm afraid not."

"What if I just clock you? That's intentional violence."

I sighed. "You do not, ever, want to find out what happens to employers who choose to invalidate the contract that way."

"What if you punch me?"

"I can't. If I try to intentionally harm an employer, I experience searing pain in my skull. It is not a pain I could fight through long enough to actually do anything."

She sighed. "Fine. I guess you're stuck with me for a while, then." I found it strange that she didn't consider it the other way around. Of course, she would want to sell my contract as soon as possible. She seemed the type to be a do-gooder. She wouldn't want a ghoul slave following her everywhere like a sick puppy. She smiled at me, began walking toward the exit, and finally, I would say goodbye to the place at which I've been slowly rotting away.

"So what's your story?"

I grunted. "What do you mean?" We were holed up for the night, in some abandoned shack by the water, halfway between Underworld and Rivet City. She opened cans of beans and packages of cold steak for us to eat.

"How did this whole… indentured servitude thing happen? No one becomes a slave overnight. Oh, god! I'm sorry, I shouldn't use the word slave, it's so rude-"

"It is fine, mistress. That is… what I am." I preferred to keep my past private… but she asked a direct question. Perhaps I could keep the whole story to a minimum. "I was in the American military before the War."

"You're Pre-War!"

"Yes."

"Sorry, but we're totally talking history later. This is so cool."

I didn't bother keeping the smile off my face. "That is fine. Yes, I am a Pre-War ghoul. Most of the ghouls in the Capital Wasteland are, as well."

"They don't wanna talk about the past, though."

Who could blame them? I shrugged. "The past is what it is. We cannot change it. We might as well use it to educate. Perhaps it would make this planet a better place." I froze a bit. I hadn't meant to speak out of turn about my beliefs, or my hopes. Instead of lashing out, she smiled up at me.

"I agree with that for sure. So, okay, go on. You're Pre-War, military, all that stuff. Tell me about your life." She threw up her hands, "I mean, the parts you're okay with sharing! You don't have to tell me all the dirty secrets. We just might as well get to know each other, and get along, if we're going to be traveling together for a while."

I told her the basics. I grew up outside of Boston, in the Commonwealth up north. I joined the military to take care of my family. My mother died when I was young, probably 19 or so; mistress's eyes became sad when I said that. Seven years into my service, mistakes were made, and I was thrown into a program that made me what I am today - a slave. Not long after I was made this way, the Great War began and ended, and destroyed the world as we knew it. My father, I assume, died when the bombs dropped. I had a sister. She probably died, too.

After I was finished, I stayed quiet for a few moments before she spoke again.

"Charon, I'm sorry. I didn't know I was unlocking such a tragic backstory."

"I am sorry if I upset you."

"No, not at all. I'm sorry you went through… any of that. It must have been hard."

I shrugged. "I do not remember the emotions I felt all those years ago. I remember things that happened, but not how they affected me, of course excluding the military program. I think it is obvious how that affects me every day."

"How does the… how did the military program thing work? What exactly did they do to you to make you obedient like this?" She plunked her spoon against the bottom of an empty can as she spoke, no longer looking at me.

I sighed without meaning to. "When it began, I was 25. They escorted me out of my bunk early in the morning, before the sun rose, threw me blindfolded into a vehicle, and took me to some cold, sterile place. It started with physical and psychological torture and encouragement. Obey, no suffering, no reward. Disobey, and they would do… horrible things. Show me realistic holograms of my parents dying in painful ways, or clip battery wires to my fingertips and shock me. Sometimes worse." She quietly gasped, but let me go on. "I had to learn that the most minor action was considered disobedience. I was not allowed to dislike the meals they brought me. I was not allowed to not address anyone who addressed me first. I was not allowed to use the restrooms unless prompted by a superior." She opened her mouth to ask the question, but I answered it before she could. "I have since gotten over many of these issues. I am able to eat and relieve myself when I need to, for example."

She smiled, and nodded. "Go on."

"A few years into this, and I was very good at being obedient. I associated disobeying my orders with extreme pain in some form, which was their goal. I was a worthy slave. I was tall, muscular, strong, and looked frightening, even with a human face. But they had developed a new technology. A chip, a neural implant. They could secure it to the human brain to stimulate fear or pain response, even without using particular torture methods. It feels like… searing, burning pain, combined with an electric shock. It is unpleasant, to say the least."

She hugged her arms around her chest. "That sounds just… the worst. I'm so sorry your life has been this way."

"It is what it is, mistress."

After a pause, she spoke. "Would it make this easier for you if I give you a standing order or two? To speak your mind, to do what you like, to come and go as you please?"

I chuckled. This is a good kid. "I can work with that. You should know that I have a duty to protect you with my own life, if necessary, and I will never choose to leave your side. You could order me to stay inside your homestead while you are gone, for example, but if I am being honest, it would make me extremely uncomfortable. If something happens to my employer because I am not there…" I couldn't even bring myself to utter the words. "If you die while I am in your service, my future will become incredibly bleak."

She mussed up her hair with her hand; clearly, this must be some sort of tic. "I'll do my best to not die, then. If we're stuck together for a while, I have a responsibility to you too."

"May I ask a question?"

"Of course! In the future, you don't have to ask permission first. Say what you want, ask what you want, whenever you want."

"Why is my… happiness… such a concern to you?"

She sighed. "Listen, this is weird for me. I try to be a good person. Literally buying the service of another human being is not exactly something I'd planned on doing in my life. Too late now, and it seems incredibly awful if I were to just sell you to someone else. Then there's the issue of what if I were to sell you to a horrible person? You're safer with me. I can guarantee at least a happy, fair life for you."

"You know nothing about me except what I have shared with you now. Why do you care?"

She looked away from me, not meeting my eyes. She started peeling the label off her second can of beans nervously. "I had heard things. Awful things about what you had gone through under Ahzrukhal. What he made you do…" She shook her head, still unblinking, still not looking at me. "I thought I could free you. I really didn't know I couldn't, I hope you believe that. I knew you couldn't control your actions, but I didn't know to what extent. I thought maybe you had a life debt or something. I… was just trying to do the right thing."

She really _was_ a good kid. She didn't want a slave. She didn't want the contract. She bought it solely to release me, and she couldn't. And when she couldn't, she had clearly made a promise to herself about my well-being.

"How long has it been since you properly slept, Charon?" I found myself enjoying the way she said my name. Like I was… a person. An equal. I had to think about the answer.

"Almost a week."

She paled. "I'll take first watch. You sleep on that cot over there. I'll wake you in a few hours."


	3. Chapter 3

When I woke, I determined it had to be late morning based on the light coming in through the one tiny, dingy window in the waterfront shack. I rolled over, and Amelie lifted her head up from cleaning her pistol and smiled at me. "'Morning."

I cleared the sleep from my throat. "Good morning. Why did you not wake me? You must be exhausted."

She frowned and shook her head. "Nah, I'm fine. I'm wired; I'll be good until we get to Rivet City, and then I'll just rent the biggest room with the biggest bed at the hotel." I sat up and a thick, scratchy blanket that had been placed over me fell to the floor. "You seemed cold, you were shivering, so… I just happened to find that."

"Thank you. It gets cold at night, at least for me."

"Well, take your time getting up. Eat some breakfast," she nudged her foot at a can of Cram and some Instamash made in one of the empty bean cans from the previous night. "We're only a few hours from Rivet City, so… no rush."

"What is in Rivet City?"

"I did a favor for a guy. An android guy, but he doesn't know he's an android. Someone is looking for him, and I'm pretty sure if they find him, they're going to wipe him back to factory settings and the life he knows would be… over. He'd be as good as dead. A woman gave me this robot part," She rummaged through her pack and pulled out a jumbled mess of metal and wires, "And said if I give it to the folks looking for the android, they'll leave town and probably not come back, thinking he's dead and this was all I could find." She plopped it back in her pack, covering it with a ruddy old shirt. "I had to leave town for a bit to make the story more believable. I had to take care of some other things once I left anyway, so… Figured, two birds, one stone."

"Did you take care of your… other things?" My own forwardness surprised me. I rolled out of the cot and clunked my armor back into place.

She smiled and cracked open a Nuka Cola. "Kind of." She pointed the neck of the bottle at me. "You were one of the things. I'm also looking for my dad, but I hit a snag."

Looking for her father? … "You're her. The one from the vault." How could I have missed it? She is too good, too pale, too clean, she has too much thick hair for this wasteland. She is fresh out of the vault.

She froze, her eyes stuck on mine. "Yeah. That's me. How did you guess?"

"I remember the news from the radio. Just a kid, escaped from the vault, looking for her father. Running around DC doing good deeds. Sounds like you."

She chuckled. "Yeah, that's me. I wish Three Dog would keep his trap shut about me, though. I just want to live my life. If I get by doing good things for people, that's my business. Not everyone's." She handed me a cool Nuka Cola of my own. I cracked the top and tried to hand her the cap, but she shook her head. I placed it in the sack she gave me the previous day, the sack that now held 1001 caps.

We were greeted by the strangely handsome security guard, Harkness, on the bridge of Rivet City. I guessed it had been a while since I was last there, since I had no memory of him at all. He nodded his head at Amelie and raised an eyebrow in my direction. He moved forward toward me so smoothly and urgently; Amelie put a hand against his armored chest. "He's with me, Harkness. This is my friend and bodyguard, Charon." I couldn't stop my stomach from doing a flip with the way she introduced me… as her friend. Even if it were never true, it meant a lot that she wasn't afraid to tell people anyway. I supposed not everyone would be immediately aware of my servitude - most probably thought I was just a regular ghoul.

"Sorry, Amelie. Have to be cautious of new people, you know that. I just needed to check him out.

"I know. Now you know that he's good, he's with me, so we're all fine here." She took her hand away from his chest and gave me a glance - good to go. We popped inside through a squeaking, rusty door and my eyes took a moment to adjust.

Rivet City. It _had_ been a while since my last visit - there was so much life here, now. Signs pointing to every which way; the market, doctors, the bar, a hotel. Amelie led me down the stairs and through sets of doors until we reached the market where Gary's Galley resided. Gary Staley was a robust man, which was an impressive feat in this wasteland. He clearly always had enough to eat, and to keep his daughter, Angela, fed. She wasn't made of skin and bone, either.

We approached the small restaurant and Angela motioned to us to take seats at the bar. She came to us with two glasses, two forks and two napkins. _Swanky eating_ , I couldn't help myself from thinking.

"Mirelurk cakes?" She asked Amelie, who grinned and nodded. "Three, please. And a Nuka Cola."

Angela turned to me. "And for you?"

I was taken aback; not many people - humans, at least - addressed me as a person. Most of the people of Rivet City I had met during my decades in the Capital wouldn't spare me a glance out of their fear, disgust, or both. "Uhh. The same. … Please." The few cans of food Amelie and I had eaten the night before awoke a hunger in me that I had been trained for centuries to ignore, and now that hunger could not be satiated fast enough.

"Comin' right up!"

Once she was out of earshot, I leaned to my new employer. "She spoke to me and did not cringe or look away. That is unusual for me."

Amelie smirked. "Angela's a good kid. She's only 16 and all she's ever known is this boat so it's amazing she turned out so… nice. _Well_ …"

"Well?"

She hesitated and turned her body toward me, leaning in closer so we wouldn't be heard. "There was this thing that happened when I first came here. She asked me to pick up some chemical that would make this boy fall in love with her. I obviously said no, because that's wrong and gross and he works in the church here, so it just wouldn't be right. But instead of just saying no and leaving it to be someone else's problem we had a long girl talk about what is and isn't healthy, good or appropriate. So, yeah, the kid's got a couple issues, but," she shrugged, "Who doesn't these days?"

Gary began frying up the mirelurk cakes while Angela brought us two cold Nuka Colas and two glasses. _Clean glasses_ , I thought, impressed.

Amelie pushed the glass away, popped the top off her drink and took a sip, carefully and stealthily keeping an eye on the big room around us. She made it look natural, and to an untrained eye, it wouldn't look like a scope-out. She caught me observing her, and smirked. "What?"

"It impresses me that you grew up in an underground tube and only emerged months ago, yet you have already taught yourself skills that would aid you in survival."

She chuckled. "I'm not very strong, and I'm not that great of a shot. Being able to get by undetected is what's kept me alive. I had to get damn good at it, fast."

"I can teach you to shoot more efficiently, if you would like."

"You'd do that?"

"It is part of my duties to you. But… I would also do it as a kindness."

"Wow. I appreciate that. I need to get a better gun, and then maybe we can go up north where there's nothing but desert and practice." I nodded, and cracked the top off my Nuka Cola.

A thought occurred to me, as I sat quietly, slightly relaxed for the first time in far too long. _She knows she isn't strong, or great with a weapon, yet she still bought my contract knowing what I am capable of… with the intention of freeing me. Never keeping me for my strength._ The slight radiation in the Cola buzzed through me, helping my body heal the few cuts and scrapes I still had. Then I remembered; my new employer was human. Radiation was bad for her, unlike its effects would have been on Ahzrukhal. I had watched her eat irradiated food, drink Nuka Cola like it was going out of style, but I had never watched her take a RadAway or even a Rad-X. She could have done it while I slept, I supposed. I made a mental note to inquire about this later, when we were not surrounded by listening ears.

Angela brought our food out, and it looked fantastic, and it smelled even better. Crispy Mirelurk cakes with what looked like seasoning mixed in. We dug into our food; it _was_ fantastic. Not long after the Great War, it became easy to forget what good food tasted like, especially coming from the military life and going straight into indentured servitude. Everything was bland, canned, or both.

When the meal was done, Amelie brought our dishware back to the Galley's bartop and paid two handfuls of caps to Gary. She nodded her head to me towards the exit; I followed. As we meandered through the dank halls of the old boat, she spoke in a hushed tone,

"Now we're going to go meet with the guy who wants the android. It should be quick, because he isn't very street smart and I'm pretty sure I can convince him to just move on with his life. You can just stand there and look pretty, if you'd like," she said as she threw me a smirk, "But he's got an android friend of his own who's incredibly intimidating. I'm actually glad I have you at my back for this just in case it goes sour."

We entered a huge atrium labeled the "Science Lab", and before the door even shut behind us we were approached by an almost-elderly man followed by an almost-young, too-perfect man. _That must be the android. His features are too… manufactured._

"Zimmer."

"Wastelander." He spoke with an accent that was too affected. He was trying far too hard to sound important.

"I did what you asked and I found the android dead, half-buried in the desert and completely scrapped for parts. This was all that was left worth taking," she rummaged through her pack and carefully pulled out the mechanism she had showed me earlier, "Unless you wanted a finger or two."

Zimmer had a shocked, disgusted look on his face, as if she was crazy for daring to say that to him in such a way. "No, no, that's just fine." He gingerly took the piece of machinery and handed it to his android compatriot, who placed it in an inside jacket pocket, and heaved a heavy sigh. "I was very much hoping we would find him, but I suppose this is fine, as well. If he is dead, then he is not a danger to himself… or others. Good day, wastelander." Zimmer brushed us aside and took his leave from the atrium.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Amelie shivered. "Ugh! He gave me the creeps and I'm glad he's gone." She turned to open the door, and a woman called to her from the platform below.

"Amelie! Did you have any luck finding your father yet?"

Amelie walked to the edge of the platform we were on, leaning on the railings. "Hi, Dr. Li! No, not yet. I'm still figuring that out."

"If you need anything, let me know. I mean it."

"Thanks. I'll see you later."

We left the science lab, and Amelie explained, "20 years ago, Dr. Li was friends with my parents. They all worked on this thing called Project Purity, trying to bring pure water to the wasteland. It was going well, I guess, but then I happened, and my mom died. My dad totally freaked out and brought me to the vault and left Dr. Li and Project Purity behind. But she was so kind when I first met her, telling me stories about my parents. Especially ones about my mom, because I never knew her, so… that was so nice." I could feel how sad she was - it radiated off her like heat.

"Where are we headed now?"

"To rent a hotel room for the night. I'm exhausted." I remembered that she hadn't slept in the now two days I had known her. I would have to keep an eye on her to make sure she took care of that more often.

The "lobby" of the Weatherly Hotel was… dark and rusty, like most places on this old boat. But the staff was nice enough - to Amelie, that is.

"Do you have a two-bed available, Vera?"

"Unfortunately, I do not. I have one king-sized bed in a bigger room for 30 caps per night, if that's alright."

"Perfect," Amelie said as she handed over 50 caps. "Thanks. See you in the morning!"

Vera nodded with a nervous smile as she watched us walk down the hallway to the room. I wished I could have heard her thoughts in that moment. What must she have thought of us? Me, a six-foot-six ghoul with a permanent scowl, and Amelie - a five-foot-one beautiful, perfect human, always a smile on her face?

The room was huge - easily the size of the entire Ninth Circle, with its own full bathroom and a huge bed that could fit three of me comfortably. Amelie immediately threw her pack to the floor and laid on the bed sideways, stretching into its soft-looking blankets with a groan. I put my pack down next to hers - I would have to go through it and organize it later - and sit on a nearby armchair to take off my boots and armor. Amelie sat up and started doing the same, looking around for something.

"Ah, towels! Good. I haven't bathed in days. Do you want the first shower? It's all cold water here, but it's better than nothing."

"No, thank you. You take the first one. I must take care of a few things." With my boots and armor off and my body free, I unfurled my sleeproll from the bottom of my pack to roll it out.

"Uh, no. No bedroll. You get the bed," Amelie said as if I was ridiculous for not immediately assuming as much.

"But -"

She unfurled a long, dingy off-white towel and headed into the bathroom, but turned to look at me. "Either you get the bed, or we share the bed. Either way, you aren't sleeping on the floor. You don't have to do that anymore."

My heart skipped a beat, and I nodded. She retreated to the bathroom; I put my bedroll away. I didn't dare get on the bed, yet - my person and my clothes were filthy, and I thought it would be wise to bathe first. I organized my pack, instead. The pack that once only contained a day's worth of food, water and ammo at any given time now contained handfuls and handfuls of shotgun shells, bottles of water, cans and packages of nonperishable food, one spare set of clothing, 1001 caps... I would still need to stop at a shop and purchase more clothing, perhaps get my armor repaired or even replaced. There were so many things I could do with the thousand-and-one caps.

I heard the shower stop, and a few minutes later Amelie emerged in a ratty shirt and cutoff pants - these must be her sleepwear. She fussed over her fluffed hair before just throwing it all up and tying it up on her head with some band of some sort.

I finished organizing the last of my pack and she said in a sing-song voice, "Your turn!"

"Thank you." I took a towel and my spare clothing and retreated to the bathroom. It was shockingly soft, and fairly fluffy, though it was obviously dingy like the other was. I started the water; it was chilly and made my skin prickle with radiation. But the water would do the job and get me cleaner than I had been in a long while.

I emerged from the shower, dried and dressed in a minute. I tried not to shiver from the cold water; heat just leached out of me, without all that handy skin to keep it inside. I opened the bathroom door to find Amelie curled up on one corner of the bed snoring, wrapped in a blanket, facing the wall. She had left most of the bed for me and my personal space; I appreciated that. I checked, double checked, and triple checked the door's locks and security before flipping off the light, then stood next to the bed.

I could climb into the bed, as she told me, but did not order me, to do, but this would distinctly blur the lines between employer and slave. Although, I would be comfortable.

I could disobey her wishes and set up my bedroll on the floor. I would then be uncomfortable, and this ran the risk of upsetting her in some way; while I thought I could trust that she would not get angry and take it out on me directly, I hadn't known her for very long. There was no way to know.

"Fuck it," I muttered, and climbed into the bed. I laid on my back under the blankets, letting my muscles and bones relax into the soft material of the mattress. I didn't dare move, for fear of disturbing her sleep.

* * *

(AN: Okay! Two things! ONE THING: I'm actively choosing to retcon a BUNCH of stuff that happened in Love at First Sight because now that a few years have passed since I started writing it, I realized a lot of stuff just… shouldn't be. So if things happen in this story that make you go "wait, but in LAFS that's different" - I know, I know. I'm actively working on rewriting LAFS from scratch to make it better, and to make this, LAFS, and its sequel one very consistent story. SECOND THING: Thank you for having interest in this! Reviews, comments and kudos make me feel great and I appreciate you!)


	4. Chapter 4

I woke, not knowing what the time was due to the lack of windows on this ship, but with Amelie's arm draped across my chest. I was still on my back, having not moved all night but having the most relaxing sleep I've had in years. I looked down at her - she was curled up under her blanket, mouth open, unashamedly snoring with one hand under her face and the other touching me. This was an unusual experience for me; I was frozen still, uncomfortable.

Not long after I awoke, so did she with a start… and a snort. "Oh!" She pulled her arm back to herself. "I'm so sorry. I was so dead asleep, I had no idea I was invading your personal space."

"It is alright. I… must get ready." I rushed to the bathroom to prepare for the day - showering, dressing. A few minutes later I emerged to find Amelie dressed, packing the packs.

"Hey," She said as she turned to me, running her hand through her hair. "I'm sorry about last night. I know I made you uncomfortable and probably crossed a lot of boundaries you aren't used to. We won't share a bed again unless it's absolutely necessary."

"It is not worth worrying about. I am just… not used to contact," I muttered, not meeting her eyes. "Especially from an employer. Truthfully, I was also worried I would disturb your sleep."

"Oh," She waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about that. I sleep like the dead. It's hard to wake me up. I…" She sighed. "The night my dad disappeared from the vault, it took my friend a full ten minutes to wake me up to warn me that security was coming. Ten WHOLE minutes. She pinched me, shook me, threw water on my face. It was awful."

"Why was security coming for you?"

She sort of… groaned. "It's hard to explain, without the backstory of context of the vault's sort of… customs. But basically, my dad left and the Overseer - uh, the head honcho, basically - thought I might have been part of some ultimate plan or… some dumb shit like that. My friend knew that the guards who were coming for me were probably not going to be pleasant, whatever they were going to do."

"That sounds rough."

"It was." She handed me my pack. "But it'll all be fine when I find my dad. He left the vault to jumpstart that Project Purity thing again. It was always him and I against the world. Until I met you, it has completely sucked to be out here and just be… me against the world. Our partnership is actually kind of great… for me, at least."

"For me, as well. It was nice to sleep in a bed. A comfortable bed."

"What is on our agenda today?" I asked after we had dressed, armored up, packed the packs for the day and left the hotel. Amelie dropped the hotel room key off at the front desk.

"We're going to go tell the android that he's the android. I've argued with myself about whether this is the right decision, and I think it is. He needs to know so he can keep himself safe. There's no knowing if someone else from the North might come down here for some reason and figure him out."

She pushed the squealing door to Rivet City open, and the early-day sun burst through. I had to squint to be able to see.

"Harkness," Amelie called to the tall, handsome security guard standing by the bridge. He turned to her and smiled pleasantly. "Can we talk for a second? In private?" He nodded and motioned for us to follow him across the bridge.

"What do you need?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry to do this to you. But you have to know the truth."

"Wha-"

"Activate A3-21 Recall Code Violet." She had closed her eyes.

Harkness - or, whoever he might be now - hunched over, clutching his head and groaning. "I… I remember everything. What did you to do me?!"

"I'm sorry. There was a man looking for you and he was going to take you back to the Commonwealth and do lord knows what to you. You're a good man, human as far as I'm concerned, and I couldn't let that happen."

Still clutching his temple with one palm, Harkness straightened up and breathed deeply. "But I… I was a man. I was human. … I fell in love. Where is this man who is looking for me?"

"He's gone. He had no idea that you were the android, and he thinks you're dead. He's leaving town now. Hopefully, he never comes back."

"I suppose I should thank you for clueing me in to… what, exactly? Why did I need to know this?"

She squared her shoulders, standing up straight to try and look him in the eyes. "Ten years go by, and you never age. You never really think about it, because you're programmed not to. But everybody else notices. Everybody else in town starts to suspect that something might be off about our dear Captain of Security because ten years have passed and he never looks a day over 30. And if you never knew the truth, then in ten years, you'd never understand why the people of Rivet City disassembled you and used you for scrap.",

"These are my people. This is my town. They would never do that to me."

"When I was going around, asking people for more information about the android, most of them said that any android who masquerades as human is a danger to everyone. Humans are scared creatures, Harkness. We'll do whatever we have to do to protect our own. So, I'm sorry that I ruined your life, but you had to know. Nothing has to change, but now you know the truth and you can make educated decisions if things ever start going badly. Now, we have to go so… have a nice day. Sorry. Again." She turned to lead me down the rickety stairs, to leave Rivet City.

He called out to her from atop the tower, "Amelie, wait."

We stopped and turned. Harkness came down from the top of the tower. "I want you to have this," and he pulled his plasma rifle off his back.

"Oh, Harkness…" He pressed it into her hands. "I can't take that. That's your gun!"

"I don't use this one so much anymore. More about pistols these days. You have saved my life, and this is the least I can do for you. Please, take it." He removed a sack from his armor's pocket. "Microfusion cells."

"Thank you so much. This is the nicest gesture." Amelie cradled the weapon like it was precious, and put the sack of ammo in her pack. "Now we really do have to go. I'll see you later."

We headed East, then. The sun was just above our heads - it was midday. "We have to go to the Jefferson Memorial," Amelie told me while we walked. "It's overrun with Super Mutants, but I think we can take them on together, especially with this hell of a gun. I can't sneak past them, and I'm not good enough on my own to kill them all. There are _so_ many; the place is fucking crawling with them."

"If it is so badly overrun, how do you know your father is there?"

She shrugged. "Can't be sure until I get in there. This is the last place anybody knew he was headed; maybe he snuck in and is holed up somewhere." The Jefferson was in sight, and she was right - it was crawling with Mutants. We crouched behind a large boulder and I analyzed the situation. Seven patrolling just the southwest side of the building - three on the catwalk, one by a back door, two patrolling the grounds, and one on a rock wall that surrounded the whole west side. There was no knowing how many could be on the other side.

"Stay crouched," I whispered and pulled a sniper rifle from its place on the back of my belt. "Get your rifle ready to fire, but be prepared to run if you feel they are coming at you too heavy. I am going to try to take out as many of them as I can with headshots. The rest will take a few moments to find the source of the noise but they will come running if I can't get at them quickly enough."

"Got it. You're the expert." Amelie readied her rifle and shifted her footing ever so slightly - more stable to stand and shoot, easier to turn and run. She was good at this; at least knowing how to listen to instructions.

I aimed my rifle at the nearest mutant and took the first shot.


	5. Chapter 5

We hobbled our way back to Rivet City after a lengthy battle with far too many Super Mutants. Amelie most likely had some broken ribs and a broken arm, while I only had a few lacerations and a dislocated shoulder. She had turned her jacket into a makeshift sling to hold her arm in place until we got back to the boat, but the going was still rough.

To her credit, Amelie had listened to me - she ran when I instructed her to run. Of course, she was a small human… and a clumsy one at that. Although she had shot the mutant four or five times in the gut, he still clubbed her when she tripped backwards over a tree root. My need to keep the employer safe put me in danger; another mutant had tried to pick me up and throw me like a ragdoll.

Needless to say, we survived… but not by a lot.

Harkness approached us as we crossed the bridge to Rivet City. "My god, what happened to you two?"

Amelie scoffed. "The Jefferson." I hurried ahead of her to pull the door open, and she led me down the dank halls to the Science Lab - she let me do my duty, and hold doors open along the way.

"Dr. Li?" Amelie called from the second-floor balcony in the Science Lab.

"Yes - oh my goodness, Amelie, what happened!"

"Too many mutants at the Jefferson. I just -"

"You know I can't help fix you up, right? I'm just a scientist; not a doctor."

Amelie smiled and glanced at me incredulously, as if we were sharing an inside joke. "I know, I just wanted to come let you know what was going on. With that many mutants, my dad couldn't possibly be there. If he ever was, he certainly isn't now. We have to go back again with a better plan."

Dr. Li's brows knitted together in concern. "Thank you for letting me know. Now go; up the stairs and down the hall, first door on the left is the clinic. Dr. Preston will be able to help you."

Amelie nodded, and we departed.

Dr. Preston was, to put it mildly, an asshole. He very nearly refused to treat my wounds, which was fine by me; some radiated water and a bandage, and I would be fine.

"300 caps, Preston. 300 caps and you treat us both, Charon first and without prejudice, or else I break your arm over your own knee." I couldn't help but smirk.

The horrified look on his face said it all, but he mumbled "Jesus, fine." He motioned for me to sit on the cot; I did, because that is what my employer wanted of me. "What are your injuries?"

"These lacerations," I lifted my shirt to show him my lower torso, "And a dislocated shoulder."

He inspected the wounds without touching my skin. "The lacerations aren't bad. Two Stimpaks," He pushed them into my hand, "And I can pop the shoulder back in. Just give me your arm, and -" He pulled on my arm, then pushed on my shoulder and a satisfying, but grotesque, _crack_ sound filled the room. I bit back a groan. Relocating a shoulder always hurt more than dislocating it did in the first place.

"Thank you, Dr. Preston." He grumbled something that sounded like "it's not a problem," and quickly stepped away from me. I administered the Stimpaks to myself, appreciating the quick work they did. I stepped down from the cot and helped Amelie up to it, which was a task in itself. I could not touch her left side for fear of hurting her ribs, but her right arm was the one fractured.

She hunched over on the cot, protecting her ribs and groaning. I removed her jacket-sling and her arm, now butterflied with dark bruises, sat limply on her leg. Preston investigated the areas, gingerly rotating and touching and prodding the ribs and the arm, soliciting hisses from Amelie.

"Can't say if the bones are broken or what, I can't do x-rays here. I can give you some Med-X and Stimpak you, but that's the best I can do. You're probably gonna need a couple days for the bones to heal." He stepped to the other side of the room, unlocking a drawer, pulling out a syringe, then relocking the drawer. He turned back around and said "You can probably understand why I would need to keep that locked up." Amelie and I both nodded knowingly.

"Can you only give me half of it? I want to trek back home if I need to take a few days off anyway, I'll need to be in something that resembles a right state of mind."

Preston shrugged, and found a vein to administer the Med-X. Med-X is an interesting drug. Before the War, Med-X was only used in dire cases of serious injury or surgery. It was, and still is, the most addictive substance because of the numb, blissful high it provides. Amelie shivered as it worked its magic; the drug would immediately take effect. If her bones were broken, even half a syringe of Med-X would make them feel bruised at best.

Preston applied Stimpaks to her ribs and arm, tied her a sling made of old cloth, and sent us on our way. She poured caps out of a sack for him, thanked him, and we left.

As we walked through the dank halls of the rusty ship, I asked, "Where are we off to?"

"Megaton," she smiled. "I have a home there." The way she said _home_ with reverence told me that this was, for her, not just any place to live. "The house has a second bedroom, so when we get there I'll get you a bed and any other amenities you want. The Supply store has a little bit of everything, so we'll shop after we rest for a bit. I haven't been home in weeks. It'll be so nice to relax." Her words slurred together ever so slightly.

After a brief silence, I spoke. "It sounds nice. May I ask how you managed to purchase a house? You have not been out of the Vault for very long."

Amelie paused, holding a finger up to indicate she needed a moment. "Can you get the door, please?" I pushed the door to Rivet City open, throwing us into the bright sun once more. After we had passed the security guards and the bridge, she spoke again. "It's a long story, but I can give you the gist of it if you want."

"No, by all means. Tell me your story."

She smiled at me. "In the few moments I had before I left the Vault, I went through everything my dad owned. Every desk drawer, pockets of the clothes he left behind, everything. My thought process was that whatever was going to happen to me next, I was going to need everything I could get my hands on. Weapons, intel, money…"

"As far as I had been aware up to that point in my short life, no one had ever left the vault. No one even knew if there was a world out here. So, I found a lot of caps that my dad had stashed away. Caps were useless in the vault, so whatever he'd had in his old life up here he just… kept. I assumed, since there were so many, that they'd probably be important and I just held on to them. Over 5000 caps."

"Wow. 5000 caps bought you a whole house and lets you live the way you do?"

"Ah, that's where the story continues. Once I got to Megaton… well, more like blindly stumbled into the Sheriff and almost launched us both down a steep hill, I spent a few hundred on food, weapons, ammo, and a bed to sleep in for a few weeks. But I was told that the person who defused the giant bomb in the center of town would get the empty house, free of charge, for their service to everybody in the interest of possibly saving their lives.

"'Course, there was this gross guy, Burke, who wanted me to blow everything up. And then blow him." I raised a brow at her. "Yeah. He was super gross. Obviously I didn't do that since I'm not a killer. He skipped town, sent me a bunch of creepy love letters, and put a hit out on me with the Talon Company."

"You have _Talon_ after you?" I asked incredulously.

She shrugged. "Eh, they're not so bad. Talon really will hire anybody, and so far only a bunch of weaklings have come after me. I've been fine. They all tend to be terrible shots, look -" She lifted her shirt to show me a healing wound on her hip. "This? He was aiming for my head."

"They just don't make Talon Company like they used to," I shook my head in mock shame. "Talon used to be the most feared mercenary troupe in the Capital. And now… they come after teenage girls?"

Amelie scoffed. "It's actually kind of sad."

I chuckled. "Please, continue your story."

"After I heard about the house thing, I spent my first few weeks sleeping in a sketchy bed above a bar, or sometimes at the common house, and learning everything I could get my hands on about explosives. Especially pre-war ones, since obviously the Megaton bomb is pre-war. There was still so much I didn't know but I was getting impatient and I honestly hated sleeping in such public places that I kind of… winged it?"

"You _guessed_ at defusing a bomb that could wipe out an entire town of people?"

"Listen," She waved a hand almost dismissively, as if she didn't care but I sensed it was likely a joke, "Everything worked out fine. There were only a few wires I wasn't sure of. But I defused that bomb, got a house for free, and I just… live. I took a lot of my caps and invested in caravans and the supply shop in Megaton so I can share some of their profits, but if they ever need help, I'm there. I find so many caps when I'm out scavenging that I just squirrel them away and spend them when I want to."

"That is why you were insistent I take that 1000 caps, when we first met."

She smiled. "Yep. Not that I'm rolling in money, but in the grand scheme of things, 1000 caps is not exactly going to bankrupt me. Paying you a fair wage is _literally_ the least I can do." I grunted, still uncomfortable with the prospect of being paid after two centuries of it never happening. "Once we get home I'll set you up with storage space and some cap stashes of your own. Until I can figure out how to free you, my intentions are to give you as much freedom as possible. Do what you want, eat what you want, sleep when you want… go wherever you want to go."

Oh. "I… did not know you still had intentions to free me."

"Of course! Like I told you a few days ago, what are my other options? I could never sell your contract to someone else; that's gross, and wrong, and runs the risk of you ending up in the hands of another bad person. I can't hold your contract forever, either. I'm not a slaver. I'm not that kind of person."

"This, I know. Spending this time with you the last few days, it has become clear that you are a good person. You try very hard to do the best for everybody else."

She smirked. "All I can do is my best." We were q uiet for about a mile. I could see a huge structure in the distance - Megaton. "In a perfect world, I would probably still want to hire you as a mercenary buddy, if you so chose to accept. It's nice to relax a little bit out here and not have to watch my back so closely. It's easier to watch yours while you watch mine."

"If I may admit…" She looked up at me with big, bright, green eyes. "It has been nice with you, this short time we have had." Amelie broke out into a huge smile.

"For me, too."


End file.
